Children of the Star
by NotesfromaClassroom
Summary: Is the crew of the Enterprise losing their minds or seeing the future? A mysterious star may hold the answer.
1. Nyota Means Star in Swahili

**Chapter One: "Nyota Means Star in Swahili"**

 **Disclaimer: No money made here. A labor of love only.**

Spock almost never dreams. For a long time after he lost his mother, he slipped into troubled nightmares whenever he closed his eyes to rest, but those stopped long ago—years, though at this moment he cannot calculate the exact number. Nine years since his mother's death, or perhaps ten? He is never unsure when he is awake.

Yet he is certain he isn't asleep. He knows he is sitting cross-legged in front of his _asenoi_ in the crew quarters he shares with Nyota. She is still on duty on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , monitoring the communications between stellar cartography and a shuttle survey team sending back data on the only variable star in this quadrant.

Variable stars of this magnitude are not rare and the work should be routine. Ever since the ship entered orbit, however, the crew has reported unusual neurological and psychological symptoms to sickbay.

Radiation emitted by all stars affects organic life in some way, so the fact that Procis 241 might influence the crew's behavior is not, in and of itself, cause for concern. Earth's star, for instance, provides the requisite energy for plants and animals to thrive.

Of course, overexposure also causes epidermal burns and cancers.

That doesn't mean that Procis 241 is necessarily a danger, or even the cause. Any number of reasons for the headaches and dizziness the crew have reported are possible, including a parasite or another contagion. The _Enterprise_ crew also could be suffering the normal effects of being in close quarters without shore leave for an extended period of time.

Even Nyota has been exceptionally irritable with him lately, snapping with uncharacteristic anger at minor annoyances. Hence his choice to work separate shifts, and his increased need for meditation. Part of him hopes their current rift is the result of the star and not proof of an inevitable slide into a parting of the ways.

Speculating about the star and its effects is pointless until the survey team finishes gathering data in 12 hours. Or 13. Spock feels something close to alarm at the gap in his memory.

"Are you well?"

The voice is both familiar and not. Spock opens his eyes and looks into the face of a young woman. Her worried gaze is human, but her features—upswept brows and ears—are Vulcan. With a jolt, he knows who she is.

"I am...fine," he says. "Daughter."

The syllables are odd on his tongue. Surely she has a name, something he calls her that is less formal. He casts about in his memory but comes up with nothing.

The young woman—his daughter—leans over and puts her hands on her knees so she can peer more closely at him. "Are you certain? You seem distracted."

Looking around, Spock sees that they are in a park, he sitting cross-legged on a blanket spread over the grass. In the distance, children laugh. A motorized scooter rumbles past. A warm breeze lifts a matted strand of his hair and he shivers.

If this is a dream, it is far more detailed and realistic than any he's had in the past. And although he occasionally indulges in imagined scenarios while he meditates, he is always the conscious author. This is something different.

The young woman stands up straight and crosses her arms. "Are you going to sit there all day? I thought you were going to show me around." Her tone is playful and she grins as she speaks, something no Vulcan would do. A human would, and in particular, the human he knows best.

Spock gives an audible sigh of relief. Nyota must be somewhere nearby.

"Where is your mother?"

"Who knows," his daughter says, shrugging. "She and Bubba went to see some boring something a little while ago."

"Bubba?"

"I know he hates it when I call him that, but Uncle Jim was right. All brothers need to be teased."

Spock is mystified but also quietly delighted. This young woman is obviously Nyota's child—graceful and dark and mischievous like her mother. But she is his daughter, too, her Vulcan features and dry wit part of his inheritance.

"Now, are you going to come on?" She raises her voice slightly and Spock gets to his feet.

"Berlin," he says, recognizing the park, though he cannot remember its name. His father took him here once on a tour of European capitals before he'd applied to the Vulcan Science Academy. They'd had an argument—here, in this park—and the rest of the trip had been awkward and silent.

Not an argument, but a disagreement. Sarek did not argue. He pronounced what was, and Spock either agreed or was wrong.

The argument in the park—the disagreement—was about trees, of all things. Sarek had insisted that the trees in bloom were a species of oak, but Spock was equally sure they were linden.

"The linden trees of Europe were extinct by the late 21st century," Sarek said. "A fungus destroyed them all. You are mistaken."

"Nevertheless," Spock said, "the scent of linden pollen is unparalleled. Surely you noted it. And although oak leaves resemble linden to a degree, it is you who are mistaken. Obviously, some linden trees survived the mass extinction to which you referred."

A twitch crossed his father's face. When he spoke, Sarek sounded annoyed and disappointed in equal measure. "Why do you always question what I say? Why are you like this, Spock?"

Even now—even here in this not-dream world—Spock feels a measure of surprise at what he did then.

"As you know," he said, locking his gaze with his father's, "I am the product of my genes and my environment, and _you_ are responsible for both."

The scent of linden trees wafted around them like an aftertaste of a bitter meal.

His daughter—the young woman whose name he does not know—runs ahead of him. "Come on!" she calls back. "There's not much time!"

He picks up his pace and breathes in the heavy fragrance of the trees. His daughter stops abruptly and turns to him, lifting her arms over her head to indicate the canopy of green leaves.

"This!" she says, her tone joyful. "I want to learn all about this!"

"They are linden trees," Spock says, grateful to have something to say. "People long believed they had become extinct after the Third World War, but here in Berlin they survived."

In a rush, his daughter—this lovely young woman with her mother's eyes—comes toward him and takes his right hand in hers. A warm spark of energy flies between them.

"Yes, I know that, Father! What I want to explore is why! Why are they here? Why did the ancient molecules evolve into trees and not something else? Why these trees? Why here? Why?"

She lets go of his hand and he feels as bereft as if he had lost someone dear to him. Her words make no sense, almost as if she is speaking an unknown language, but he gives himself over to the reality of this not-dream-not-meditation. His usual anxiety about things—his drive to find out and know—is quieter here. Somehow he is content to let his daughter be the explorer, even if he does not understand her quest.

He's a different father than his father had been. Or he will be.

Perhaps the variable star is interphasing with the future and this is a vision of what will be. Twice already the _Enterprise_ has recorded instances of spacial interphase in variable star formations. Could this be a third, with a peek into what will happen years from now?

Or perhaps he is suffering a psychosis brought about by the proximity to the unknown radiation signature of Procis 241. Given the odds, that seems more likely.

"You need to wake up," he hears Nyota say like a faint echo. He presses his eyes closed and tries to return to his room, his _asenoi._

But his daughter is suddenly at his side and they are walking through a copse of trees scented with tiny white flowers.

"Remember how Mother got so mad that time I overwatered her orchid," she says, and to his astonishment, Spock does remember it. His daughter barely up to his elbow, her black hair pulled back into two sleek ponytails, confessing that she'd been watering the orchid on the sly. Nyota's dismay that this gift from Spock to celebrate the birth of their fist child was drowned in rusty colored water.

"And remember how Grandfather brought her another one just like it, and how he said flowers can be replaced but children are fragile?"

This, too, Spock recalls—the potted orchid in his father's hands as he stood in the doorway of their apartment in San Francisco—Nyota's eyes watering as Sarek spoke, the harmony between mother and daughter restored by his words.

"I remember," Spock says, feeling such a measure of love for Nyota and his daughter and Sarek that his heartbeat thrums like a timpani in his side.

"Please come back," Nyota says in his ear, but his daughter takes his hand and again he feels the electricity between them.

"I'm not ready for you to leave," she says, tugging him forward. "If you go, I may not see you again."

That is true, Spock thinks. If this is a figment of his imagination—a construct of his star-addled brain—she will disappear when he regains consciousness.

But if she is a glimpse of the future, seen through the strands of a stellar interphase—

"I'm going to give him 40 cc's of methadryl. That should get his attention—"

Dr. McCoy's voice this time.

Spock lets his daughter's fingers slip from his. "I must go," he tells her. He opens his eyes and sees Dr. McCoy squatting beside him on the floor of his and Nyota's quarters. The _asenoi_ flickers behind him like a misshapen jack-o-lantern.

"That will not be necessary." Spock motions towards the hypo in the doctor's hand.

"Well, welcome back, Spock," the doctor says. "You gave us a scare."

"How long have I—"

"I found you like this when my shift ended." Nyota is kneeling behind his left shoulder and he swivels around slowly to make eye contact. A faint sheen of perspiration is across her cheeks and nose. Her eyelashes are wet.

"I'd like to keep you overnight for observation in sickbay," Dr. McCoy begins, but Spock interrupts.

"Unnecessary. I am unharmed."

"As I was saying," McCoy says, pointedly addressing Nyota, "I'd feel better if I could haul him down to sickbay for awhile, but there's no more room at the inn. We are full with patients much more agreeable and compliant than your partner here. I'm on my way now to report to the captain. As far as I can tell, it's not a virus—"

"The star," Spock says. "The odds are that it is emitting some sort of scandian particle radiation, or it might be undergoing a stellar interphase—"

"Dammit, Spock. Spare me the mumbo jumbo. You can tell Jim yourself. And sit back down. He'll come to you." To Nyota he says, "Keep him here." He raises his eyebrows and adds, "If you can."

McCoy leaves with a noisy flourish.

When the room is quiet again, Spock listens to Nyota's soft breaths. Still sitting beside him on the floor, she edges closer until her arm brushes his.

"You were somewhere else," she says at last, breaking the silence. "I couldn't reach you there."

"I could hear you," he says. He feels her bristle, her anger flaring across her skin.

"Then why didn't you—"

"Our daughter required my attention."

At once her anger dissipates. He hears her sharp intake of breath. "How is that possible?"

"I would be untruthful if I said I knew. But she was ours, Nyota. Or she will be. It defies logic, but I know this."

He looks up then into her face and is startled to see her smiling. Of all the emotions he could have anticipated—disbelief, skepticism, worry—he is caught off guard by her amusement.

"You do not believe me."

"On the contrary," she says, taking his hands in hers. "I do. You would never, ever, ever tell such a ridiculous story unless it was true."

Her laughter unlocks something inside him and he falls easily into their private, affectionate patter.

"Even delusional people can sometimes sound convincing," he parries. "Or my logic could be faulty and I might be mistaken."

Nyota grins. "It won't be the last time, will it?" She stands up and holds out her hand to him as an invitation to join her. "Come on," she says.

"You heard the doctor," Spock says as he gets to his feet. "I am to stay here until the captain arrives for a debriefing."

"Exactly. Which knowing Jim Kirk, won't be for at least twenty minutes. We have plenty of time."

"What did you have in mind?" Spock follows her as she makes her way to their bedroom.

"Use your logic," Nyota says, smirking. "I want to hear all about that possible daughter of ours."

"Khio'ri."

"What?"

"Khio'ri." Spock lets the word tumble across his lips. "Khio'ri. Vulcan for star. We will name her after you."

 **Author's note: Long time no see! I've missed writing and playing in the Star Trek universe and hope you enjoy this new story. Let me know!**


	2. Like Father, Like Son

**Chapter Two: Like Father, Like Son**

 **Disclaimer: No money made here! Enjoy!**

Jim Kirk almost never drinks alone. He used to—back when he nursed his resentments as carefully as he nursed his beers, itching to throw the first punch at some noisy drunk in a bar fight—but Starfleet has given him discipline, and more than that, a reason to grow up.

Hand him a glass of prosecco or a dirty martini or Romulan ale at a friend's birthday celebration, a snooty cocktail party, or a rollicking beach dance and he's perfectly happy to drink and socialize. Occasionally he meets Bones in the officers' mess for a taste of bourbon, but he doesn't keep alcohol in his quarters and he is suspicious of people who do. He remembers all too well what a drink or three would do to his step-father.

But tonight he's tempted.

Scotty keeps good Scotch in his quarters and would gladly give some to his captain. And Chekhov has offered to share his stash of authentic handcrafted vodka.

Jim stands a few feet from the turbolift and considers whether to go ask. With a sigh, he turns and heads up the corridor to sickbay instead.

Bones is at his desk in his office and barely glances up when Jim walks in.

"Gimme a minute," he says, his attention on a mounted medical monitor. In no hurry, Jim eases into a chair in the corner.

Bones half-rises from his desk and yells at the open door behind him. "Chapel!" A young blonde nurse appears at once—Chris, or Christine, one of Carol's friends, a recent transfer from a tour of duty in the Outer Ring sector. Seeing her brings a fresh stab of regret about how things had ended with Carol. "Tell Edgars to up his dose of ditropamine to 10 milligrams. Got that? Twice a day until that rash completely disappears."

Chapel murmurs her assent and glances briefly at Jim. Before he can acknowledge her, she's gone.

Bones sits and swivels his chair around to face Jim, his expression dark. "I hope you're coming to tell me that the _Enterprise_ is getting the hell outta here."

"You know we can't leave until we finish the survey of the star," Jim says, trying not to sound as tired as he feels. He's had this argument with Bones already once today. At their morning department meeting, Bones was annoyed when Jim sided with Spock's recommendation that they remain in orbit around Procis 241.

That meeting hadn't gone well. Bones had been louder and more emphatic than usual.

"Jim, the longer we stay here, the more often the crew are having these weird dreams, or hallucinations, or whatever they are," Bones had almost shouted, the other department heads eying him warily. "Half of the engineering department is complaining of ringing in their ears." He gestured toward Scotty who nodded.

"Aye, Captain, but we're hanging in there. No one's missed a shift."

McCoy darted a look of annoyance at the chief engineer. "Engineering might be limping along but the chemistry lab is shuttered until enough staff get back up to speed to run it safely. Dizziness, double vision, anxiety attacks—and for what? We aren't any closer to finding out what's causing this than we were three days ago!"

"On the contrary, doctor. We are caught in a temporal interphase and are seeing ourselves in the future," Spock said, his voice hitching slightly, " _or_ we are experiencing delusions brought about by some property of the star itself."

Bones threw up his arms in exasperation. "We've gone over that already! Tell me something I don't know!"

Spock canted his head to the side and blinked. When he spoke again, he sounded as if he were humoring a difficult child. "Astrophysics is investigating a radiation signature that may be the source of the anomaly. We are not certain as of yet."

"As of yet! Meanwhile I have people all over the ship showing serious signs of distress while you ignore the obvious solution. Move the ship out of harm's way!"

"You are ignoring our primary purpose, doctor," Spock said, his voice rising. "We are tasked with exploration, often at great risk. No one on this ship is unaware of the dangers of space travel. Rather than spend your energy telling the captain what he already knows, your time could better be used to find an antidote to the symptoms—"

"I can't find an antidote when I don't know the cause!"

"Precisely why we need to remain in orbit to gather more data. If we depart now, we lose the opportunity to discover how this star operates."

"Sounds like a good plan to me."

"As I said, doctor, our primary mission—"

Jim rolled his eyes at the almost-unfriendly squabbling Spock and Bones have fallen into lately, a habit that grates on Jim's nerves as often as he is bemused by it. By the time the meeting adjourned, the tension in the room was palpable.

Hours later, Bones is still clearly smarting from Jim's earlier lack of support. He swivels his chair back around and fusses with his keyboard. "If that's all you came here to say, then I have things to do, Jim."

"Actually," Jim says slowly, "I was hoping you might join me for a drink."

"I don't fraternize with the enemy."

Despite himself, Jim feels a spark of genuine anger. Bones is many things—curmudgeonly, hypersensitive, blunt—but he's never been passive-aggressive before.

"Is that what I am? Your enemy?"

"Dammit, Jim, I'm thinking of the health of the crew. Why aren't you?"

"Do you really—I mean, _really_ —think the crew is in serious danger? That these symptoms are doing permanent damage?"

Suddenly Bones leans back and shrugs, the wind out of his sails. "I don't know. Permanent? Probably not. But I can't promise that. None of the brain scans show anything other than heightened stimulation in the cerebral cortex. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't some mass hysteria spreading among a really tired crew—"

"I hope not," Jim says with an abruptness that immediately catches Bones' attention.

"What is it? You been affected?"

Jim nods. "I thought I saw someone. Someone I know couldn't be there, on the observation deck. He was in the shadows, but I saw him." Rubbing his hand over his jaw, he adds, "What about that drink, Bones?"

Bones uncrosses his arms and sighs. Reaching down, he pulls open his desk drawer, takes out a flask, and hands it to Jim.

"How do you know he wasn't real? You said it was dark."

Jim upends the flask and takes a long swig. "It was my dad."

When he closes his eyes, the image is still there—a glimpse... _no_ , more than a glimpse...of his father standing by the observation window, younger than he is in any of the holos his mother keeps on the mantle over the wood-burning fireplace at her Iowa farmhouse, but the same slim build, the same messy blonde hair.

Bones hooks his finger towards the flask. "Give me that."

They sit in silence for a moment, the only noise the whir of the air exchanger overhead.

"Well, damn. Your dad, huh? You know what this means, don't you?"

"That I didn't see him. Not really."

"I think you've stumbled on the answer, Jim. This isn't some weird interphase time travel. Remember what Spock thought he saw? A future daughter. But you saw someone from your past. Temporal interphases don't jump in two different directions. There's no way the two of you could have seen both the past and the future. And it's not likely that one of you is delusional but the other one made a time jump."

"So we both imagined what we saw." Jim feels a throb of disappointment. His father's absence has always pulled like a melancholy undertow in his life.

Standing up, he says, "I'll get Spock to put together a second survey crew to make a closer orbital run. Meanwhile find some way to stop these...visions."

"You'd make my life a whole lot easier if you'd just move the damn ship outta here."

"You know that's not possible," Jim says, setting the flask on Bones' desk. The doctor picks it up, shakes it, and gives Jim a rueful look.

"That's what I was afraid you were going to say."

XX

For the few months that Carol Marcus shared his cabin, Jim kept the temperature several degrees too hot—the kind of selfless gesture that should have garnered him more credit than it did. Even so, Carol always complained of the cold, muffling herself in a misshapen nubby knit cardigan and wearing thick socks to bed.

He found one of those socks tangled in the bed covers after she transferred off the ship, her acceptance of a teaching position at the Academy as a weapons instructor completely catching him off guard.

"You have your world," Carol said, waving her hand to indicate the _Enterprise_ when she told him she was leaving. "I need a place that feels like mine, on my own terms."

At the time he'd been too surprised, too hurt, to argue. If she needed more space—if she wanted to live a life apart from him—he was willing to let her. Or if not willing, at least resigned to it.

Now he keeps the temperature in his cabin several degrees too chilly, even for him, a talisman against invoking her memory. No matter that he's kept her sock, tucked away in the corner of a drawer where he won't see it. He knows it's there.

If he dims the lights and tells the computer to wake him in an hour, he can get enough rest to clear his head before the survey crew checks in. Seeing his father—or rather, imagining his father—on the observation deck has shaken him more than he wants to admit, like Hamlet after seeing the ghost of the murdered king, or Macbeth startled into suspicious ranting by a visit from dead Banquo.

Shakespeare was on to something, alright. And now that Jim thinks about it, neither play turned out well for their poor, haunted namesakes.

But he's not haunted. Just star-addled. Or something. Bones will come up with a way to make the visions go away, and the _Enterprise_ can finish mapping this sector, leave a warning buoy for future travelers, and, as Bones would say, get the hell out of Dodge.

As soon as his head touches the pillow, he feels his limbs grow heavy, the way they do when he exercises hard with the gravity dialed up. He closes his eyes and prepares to give into his exhaustion when he hears the unmistakable scrape of a boot heel on the floor.

"Lights!" he calls out, his heart pounding in his ears.

There across the room is the same young man from the observation deck.

"Who are you?" Jim says before he can stop himself. Ridiculous to speak to an imaginary phantom, but the young man—his father—looks so solid, so present, that Jim closes his eyes and rubs them. No luck. When he opens his eyes, his father is still there. With a sigh, Jim slides off his bunk to head to the wall intercom to alert sickbay. Perhaps Bones has found something by now to help counteract these hallucinations.

"I've always wandered what your starship looked like," his father says with genuine delight. "I've followed your career. I looked up all the places you visited, read all your logs when they were made public." He takes a step forward and tips his chin down. "Of course, I never told Mother. She wouldn't understand."

Once when he was sick with Rigellian fever his first year as a cadet, Jim spent an entire afternoon watching ants the size and shape of French baguettes walking across the ceiling of the infirmary. Even in that fevered state, however, the rational part of his brain had assured him that what he was seeing wasn't real.

His father—this hallucination—is nothing like that. Nothing about the young man standing in his cabin seems illusory. Not just that he looks real—the weave of the fabric on his shirt as clear as his tousled blonde curls—but Jim feels that he is an actual living, breathing, corporeal being. More than that, he knows that they are bonded in some indescribable way, tethered together in time.

Yet something is wrong, too. Something in what his father said doesn't square with reality as Jim knows it.

"Who are you?" he asks again. Instead of answering, his father laughs.

"I've always heard you had a sense of humor."

"How could you hear anything about me? You aren't...you _weren't_...there."

"Mother still has friends on your ship. I've met some of them."

Again Jim has the sense that something isn't right, that their words are flying past each other towards the wrong targets, perhaps because this is his young father as he could never have known him.

He crosses to the wall and reaches for the intercom.

"You want me to leave?" His father's voice is almost plaintive. Jim lowers his hand.

"You can't leave because you aren't really here."

His father's expression darkens. "That wasn't my choice. No one asked me what I wanted."

Again Jim has the sensation that they are speaking at cross-purposes. As a small boy, he'd often fantasized talking with him. His list of questions changed as he grew older— _who was your favorite baseball team, what track should I choose at the Academy_ —but in every imaginary conversation, his father listened carefully and answered wisely. This conversation, by contrast, is spectacularly unsatisfying and disjointed. Whether his father is a time traveler or an imaginary construct doesn't matter.

Jim reaches up and presses the intercom button. "Dr. McCoy, I need you."

From the corner of his eye he sees his father shake his head. "This was a bad idea. Mother said it would be. But, you know, every kid wants to know his dad."

The room is cool—uncomfortably chilly—but Jim feels the temperature drop so far that he shivers uncontrollably. "Who are you?" he says, an edge of pleading creeping into his tone. They are standing so close that Jim can see that the young man's eyes are light hazel, that a patch of sparse stubble is scattered across his jaw. "At least tell me that before you go."

The image flickers like a poorly-powered hologram. The young man turns and looks into the distance as a rising buzz slowly resolves into the sound of a woman calling out.

"I have to go," he says.

"Wait!"

The unseen woman calls out again, a pair of rising and falling syllables. A poetic trochee. A revelation.

"David! David!"

Jim shivers, this time not from the cold.

"You're Carol's child."

"I'll tell her you said hello, Captain Kirk," the young man—his son—says, his expression changing from sad to amused. Jim hears the door to his quarters open and he turns to see Bones with a medkit in his hand.

"This better be an emergency, Jim," Bones grouses.

"What we've been seeing," Jim says, "is real. Look!"

But even as he says it, he knows there's no one else in the room.

 **Author's Notes: David Marcus is a nod to TOS canon. Whether he fits in** _ **this**_ **universe, we shall see!**


	3. The Man Who Knew Too Much

**Chapter Three: The Man Who Knew Too Much**

 **Disclaimer: Just playing here, folks.**

"Look out below!"

Montgomery Scott instinctively covered his head with his arms and ducked to the left. A metal spanner clanged on the floor, bounced once, and skidded towards him. He stopped its slide with the toe of his boot.

Engineer Bowman peered over the rail of the catwalk above and gave a sheepish grimace. "Sorry, Mr. Scott."

"You coulda killed me!" Scotty yelled back. "Blasted idiot. Watch what you're doing!"

From the corner of his eye, Scotty saw two ensigns at the main control panel give each other a glance. It wasn't like Scotty never yelled, or never lost his temper, or never called some clumsy oaf an idiot. But even he acknowledged that he was doing it more frequently, maybe all the time.

This crazy star they were parked beside, that was to blame. The poor _Enterprise's_ innards were getting blasted by repeated time continuum waves—or at least, that's what Scotty thought. Mr. Spock and the Captain weren't sure. And Dr. McCoy was leaning towards the notion that the crew was suffering the effects of psychological star dusting, or some such hocus pocus.

Picking up the spanner, Scotty headed to the ladder and made his way up to the catwalk. Engineer Bowman scurried forward, his hand outstretched.

"Be more careful next time," Scotty said, laying the spanner across Bowman's palm.

At once he felt the ship buckle and his feet slipped off the top rung of the ladder. The engineering room became a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors as he fell backwards toward the deck below.

He landed face up, and for an instant he heard the shouts of the crew and the footfalls of someone close by. Then everything went dark and he gave in, reluctantly, to the pull of unconsciousness.

XX

"Uncle Monty, wake up!"

Scotty felt the hot breath of the speaker at his ear. A child's voice, tender and concerned. "Uncle Monty, it's time to wake up!"

With an effort, Scotty opened his eyes. He was staring at the featureless ceiling of a room. Around him he could hear buzzes and rustling noises. Turning his head, he looked into the face of a young boy.

"He's awake!" the boy yelled, apparently to the adults who swam into view behind him.

Scotty's sister Frances leaned down and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Well," she said, "it's about time. I thought you might spend all your shore leave napping."

Scotty sat up. He was in his sister's living area in her flat in Aberdeen. Someone had thrown a blanket over his legs as he lay stretched out on the sofa, but despite that he shivered with cold.

"How long—" he began, but the young boy laughed and tugged on his sleeve.

"I didn't know grown-ups liked naps," he said. "Did you, Mum?"

Frances ruffled the boy's hair. "Aye, a nap now and then is just the ticket."

So this was Fran's boy, Peter, but that didn't make sense. The last time Scotty had seen his sister, she'd just come home with her newborn boy in her arms and Scotty had spent a week with her family, doing duty rocking Peter back to sleep and even changing nappies to give the new parents some relief. Now here was Peter—8 or 9 or 10 already—thin and wiry like his father but with the same auburn hair as Fran. Scotty had been here—what—five months ago? He felt a moment of panic. Were his memories so faulty that he'd lost years of them?

"I need a drink," he said, and the room erupted into laughter.

"Of course you do," Fran said. She motioned to someone behind her and her husband stepped forward with a glass.

Scotty took a tentative sip. "Ah," he said, savoring the smoky silk of good scotch. "What's the special occasion?"

Again everyone laughed, and Fran sat on the sofa beside him. Peter sat cross-legged on the floor at his feet.

"How long are you home for this time?" This from a dark-eyed young woman who perched on a chair across the room. Her words were freighted with an emotion that implied she had more than a casual interest in Scotty. He smiled and nodded.

"That's anyone's guess," he said. He cast about for some understanding of why he was here now, in a time that he could not remember, or which did not yet exist.

The young woman leaned forward. "Let's hope it's longer than last time."

Scotty lifted his glass and offered a silent toast to whatever the woman was implying.

His nephew was suddenly standing in his view. "Uncle Monty, I want to show you my models."

"Well, of course," Scotty said, getting to his feet. The young woman on the chair raised her eyebrows and gave a rueful grin.

"Peter, don't bother your uncle right now," Fran called from the other side of the room, but Scotty waved her away. "It's fine," he said, following his nephew out of the room and down a narrow hallway to a bedroom decorated with a mural of the solar system painted on one wall.

"Here," Peter said, pointing to a cardboard construction hanging over his bed from the ceiling. Cobbled together from paper tubes, a shoebox, and what looked like chopsticks, it was a child's vision of a starship. Peter had colored in a forward view screen, running lights, and phaser docks.

Scotty whistled his appreciation. "Good job, laddie. Looks just like the _Enterprise_."

"It's not the _Enterprise_ ," Peter said. He sounded disappointed, or miffed. Scotty pretended to give the ship a closer look.

"Of course," he said. "Now I can tell."

Peter looked mollified. "It's the _Reliant_ ," he said. "I'm going to make the _Enterprise_ next."

He moved to the small wooden table beside his bed and picked up a rarity—a real book with actual paper pages. He picked it up and held it in front of his chest like a shield.

" _Ships of the Line_." Scotty read the title out loud, Peter nodding.

"My favorite birthday present ever," the boy said. "Thank you for sending it to me."

"I did? Oh, I did. What birthday would that be for, now?"

Peter laughed. "My last one, of course!"

"And you'd be how old?"

Peter laughed again. "Next year when I'm 12," he said, "I want flying lessons. Make sure you tell my mum it's okay. She doesn't want me to be a pilot."

An 11-year old nephew, a book he couldn't remember sending—years missing and unaccounted for. Scotty sat down heavily on the bed.

"You okay?"

"Aye, I'm fine. Just….weary.

His eyes were closing of their own accord, the room growing dim.

"You can take a nap in my bed." Peter's voice, wafting in and out like a faulty transmission.

He had to be dreaming, or hallucinating. Or insane. What had Dr. McCoy said at the department heads briefing? That some of the crew had to be sedated and kept in sickbay? Maybe he was there now, unaware.

With a supreme effort he opened his eyes. He was staring again at the same featureless ceiling of the living area of his sister's flat, the same voices of Fran and her family in the background, but this time the face that greeted him was that of a teenager—Peter, obviously, though older and taller.

"Help me up, will you?"

Peter grabbed Scotty's hand and pulled him into a sitting position on the sofa where he had been stretched out.

"You sleep more than anyone I know," Peter said.

"That does seem to be the case these days," Scotty said, running his fingers through his hair. If he wasn't crazy—if he was caught in a series of time loops—perhaps he could rig his communicator to send a signal to where he started. If Lt. Uhura was at communications, she'd understand where he was, and Mr. Spock would understand how to get him home.

He hoped.

He patted his pocket and felt the reassuring weight of his communicator. When he pulled it out, he was relieved that at least the controls were familiar. The metal housing was slick and cool to his touch.

"Oh, can I see it!" Peter filched the communicator before Scotty could protest. "I've always wondered how Starfleet fixed the directional antenna problem." He popped the back from the communicator, removed a thin silicone wafer, and held it up to the light.

"Ionic resonance! That's how you do it!" He reassembled the communicator and handed it back to Scotty. "I've been working on extending the range of my personal devices," Peter said. "I never thought about using an ionic resonance chip. I wonder if I could alter the one in the holovid projector to fit."

"Too much feedback," Scotty said, falling into a patter with his nephew that felt oddly natural. "You could machine a better one from scratch."

He fiddled with the communicator control buttons, looking for any hint of a time distortion wave to piggyback an alert signal on. Nothing.

Peter was watching him intently. "Since when are you interested in engineering?" Scotty said. "I seem to remember your saying you wanted to be a pilot."

Peter's face went blank. "Did I? Maybe when I was a kid. You know, the way all kids want to fly. But I've been pretty set on engineering for a while now."

Scotty tapped the locator button and held the communicator up to his ear, listening for the telltale sound of time wave distortions. Traffic on the local channels was busy—small commercial ships heading to Spacedock requesting a tow, a Starfleet cruiser counting down to a scheduled departure.

The equipment on Spacedock—presuming it was like the Spacedock of his own time—would be far more capable than his handheld communicator in searching for time signatures.

"I need to get there," Scotty said aloud.

"Get where?"

"Spacedock," Scotty said. "I've got a…project that I need to check on. Now, where can I get an orbiter for hire?"

Peter's eyebrows rose in confusion.

From a distant room came Fran's voice. "What are you boys up to in there? Dinner's almost ready."

"Uncle Monty has to leave! He has to go back to the _Enterprise_!"

"The _Enterprise_ is here?" Scotty felt a wash of surprise and anxiety. Even if he was still posted to the _Enterprise_ , he didn't know who else might be. Would the current captain, or science officer, believe some cockamamie story about traveling from the past—if that was, in fact, what he was doing?

He flipped the communicator open and signaled the ship. A male voice answered.

For the first time, Scotty glanced down at what he was wearing. His clothes were recognizable as a Starfleet uniform, though not like any he'd ever worn. He lifted his hand to his collar and felt the pips of a lieutenant commander.

"Uh, Lt. Commander Scott here," he said into the communicator. "I need transport to the ship."

"Yes, sir," the male voice answered. "Just one to beam up?"

"Oh, please, let me go with you!" Peter said. "You said next time you were home you'd give me the tour. I promise to stay out of your way." He searched Scotty's face with the same intensity he'd shown with the communicator.

"Another time, maybe," Scotty said. "I don't know when I'll be coming back."

"All the more reason to let me go now," Peter said. His face was flushed, his eagerness palpable.

A bad idea, no doubt, but Scotty could never refuse his nephew anything.

He blinked once, twice, to clear his head. What was he thinking? His nephew was a baby he hardly knew.

And yet he felt as comfortable with the young man standing in front of him as if he had known him for years.

"Very well," he said, "but don't be bothering anyone with your questions and commentary."

Peter's grin was infectious.

"Two to beam up," Scott said, and at once he felt the almost imperceptible tingle of the transporter.

Only instead of resolving just as quickly into a view of the transporter room on the _Enterprise_ , Scotty was suddenly in the engine room, the air acrid with smoke, the sounds of moans all around him. On the deck at his feet was Peter, a young man in his twenties, perhaps, wearing white coveralls smeared with blood. As tenderly as he could, he knelt down and slid his arms underneath him and then stood up, carrying his nephew like a baby. Peter's breath rattled with every step Scotty took.

And there was Captain Kirk, visibly older, visibly shaken, listening as Scotty said, "He stayed at his post when the other trainees ran."

Words that came from nowhere or from some dark place in the universe—he blinked back tears and tried to remember why he'd said them.

His knees gave way and he started to fall forward. Peter slipped from his arms and Scotty called out as his vision went black.

For a moment he was suspended in time and space, unaware of his surroundings.

Then his feet were firmly on the ground once more and he opened his eyes. He was standing in a dimly lit room beside a stasis tube. Several other uniformed officers were with him, one checking the seal on the tube and another calling out numbers from the controls.

"That's the last one, Sir," Peter said, smartly outfitted in a red engineering shirt. He handed Scotty a digital clipboard. Glancing down, Scotty saw a list of names, presumably the people in the stasis tubes.

 _Khan Noonien Singh._

The name on the tube matched the first name on the digital list. Frost had already formed along the edges of the view plate, but Scotty could see the features of the man inside.

Imperious. Deceptive. Dangerous.

Scotty shivered. Ridiculous to feel such aversion for a stranger.

He turned to hand the digital pad back to Peter and found himself staring up at the concerned face of Engineer Bowman.

"Don't move, Sir," Bowman said. "Dr. McCoy is on his way."

A heavy weight—Bowman's hand—pressed him back down when he tried to sit up.

"You took a bad fall," Bowman said, apologizing for keeping Scotty immobile on the deck. "You shouldn't get up until the doctor checks you out."

"How long—"

"Just a few seconds," Bowman said. His attention swiveled to something behind him and he stood up and moved away. Dr. McCoy swam into view, his tricorder waving over Scotty's chest.

"Well, you didn't break anything. And you can thank that hard head of yours that you don't have a concussion. Still, I want you to take a break for a day. Catch up on your sleep, stay in your quarters and keep quiet."

Scotty could see McCoy's mouth moving and could hear his words, but their meaning seemed remote and irrelevant. He needed to talk to the captain and Spock, had to tell them that the star was sending them through swirls and quirks of time. As long as the _Enterprise_ was in orbit, they'd continue to skip along this time distortion like a stone across the surface of a lake.

With an effort, he sat upright. "I need to go—"

"Didn't you hear what I said? You don't need anything but rest." He motioned behind Scotty's back and two medics took him by the arms and helped him to his feet.

"But I need—" he said as the medics steadied him and propelled him down the passageway to his quarters. Before he knew it he was in his bunk, his eyes closing, as images flashed like a crazy kaleidoscope in his brain—images of a nephew he loved as dearly as his own son, a nephew he hardly knew, a nephew who died heroically, tragically on the _Enterprise_ or who was still asleep soundly in his crib in Aberdeen—as sound asleep as the frozen man slumbering in a tube in a darkened room.

 **Author's note: Fans of TOS will recognize Peter Preston, Scotty's nephew who died when Khan, after commandeering the** _ **Reliant**_ **, attacked the** _ **Enterprise**_ **in _The Wrath of Khan_** **. In this chapter, I've tried to suggest that Peter's future might be different in this new reality, just as the other characters are living different lives.**

 **Thanks to everyone who is reading and following and reviewing this story. I'm sorry for the tardy update. Future chapters are in my brain, but finding time to put them on paper, so to speak, can be a challenge! Wish me luck!**


	4. Chapter Four: Birds of a Feather

**Chapter Four: Birds of a Feather**

 **Disclaimer: Not for profit, just for kicks. Please enjoy!**

The image on the vidscreen is fuzzy—a disappointment but not a surprise. Uhura had warned him that as long as the _Enterprise_ is in such close proximity to Procis 241, getting a clear signal to and from Earth is dicey at best.

But Leonard McCoy isn't someone who gives up when things are dicey. He fiddles with the controls until his daughter's face swims into view.

"Joanna!" he says, unnecessarily loud. His daughter—dark-eyed and pale like her mother—gives a perfunctory wave. "Hi Dad," she says, her attention occupied with something off-screen. At one time her obvious indifference to him would have hurt. After the divorce he expected her to be angry for awhile. What still catches him off-guard is the lingering unspoken resentment masked as nonchalance whenever he contacts her.

"You busy?"

He sees her shake her head and she gives an audible sigh. "Not really," she says. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk. To see how you are."

What he doesn't tell her—what is closer to the truth—is that so many of the crew have reported seeing children that he's been half-expecting to see her in his dreams or visions or in some weird time continuum. That he _hasn't_ seen her is disturbing.

"I'm fine." She looks up then with the same disapproving stare she must have learned from her mother. "You forgot my birthday. Again."

For a moment McCoy is flustered. He remembers sending a recorded message and ordering a flower delivery in plenty of time. Unless, of course, this damn star is playing tricks with his memory—or with time, one of the strange anomalies where time is non-linear or disconnected. Could he be experiencing something similar?

But no. He looks more closely at Joanna's face and sees something there—a hard expression in her eyes, her lips pressed in defiance.

Of course she got the recorded message, received the flowers. Her birthday isn't the reason for her anger; she blames him for leaving.

Now it's his turn to sigh. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." Trying to defend himself, saying anything else, will make her angrier than she already is.

"I need to go now," Joanna says.

Before he can protest—before he can even say goodbye—the screen goes dark.

McCoy leans back and sits in silence. In a cabinet over his dresser he keeps a bottle of bourbon, and he toys with the idea of getting up and pouring a drink. He imagines the oily feel of it in his mouth—the burned caramel notes going up his nose and burning his throat, the deep satisfied weight of it warming his core.

But he also imagines the way it will heighten his sorrow and paint his sadness with a sharper shadow.

With an effort, he stands up and leaves his cabin, heading to the officers' mess on C deck. It's between shifts, and with any luck, he can drink a cup of coffee alone.

Or not. Uhura is already there, a half-eaten salad apparently abandoned in front of her. When she sees him, she waves him over.

"Eating alone?" he says, setting his cup down with care. "Where's your lesser half?"

Uhura rolls her eyes at his jab at Spock.

"Sorry," McCoy says, grinning. "Force of habit."

Instead of returning his smile, Uhura frowns and stabs a piece of lettuce with her fork.

"Wait a minute," McCoy says, "you two okay?"

Uhura shrugs and puts down her fork, giving up any pretense of eating. "I don't know. I thought we were, but now I'm not sure. I mean, everybody has rough patches, right? Every relationship?"

"Don't look at me," McCoy says, picking up his cup and taking a noisy sip. "Rough patches are all I know."

"You're joking," Uhura says, a tinge of asperity in her voice.

McCoy puts down his cup and says, "Okay, jokes aside, yeah, all relationships have ups and downs. You're just in a down place right now. It'll get better."

"How do you know that? What if it doesn't? What if it's always this…hard?"

"I'm not sure what you—"

"It wasn't always hard, was it? With your wife?"

He takes another sip of coffee, and then one more before he answers. He's known Uhura since they were at the Academy together, learning each other's strengths and wobbles through epic poker games and long conversations over drinks at the student union. She's never been cowed by anything. Her academic prowess was the envy of her classmates, her friendships with other cadets easy and genuine. He's watched her battle her way back from a serious injury playing Parises Squares and accept with uncommon grace a field promotion during the Vulcan genocide.

And he has since marveled at her ability to navigate a relationship with someone as baffling and privately soulful as Spock.

"I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask," he says. "Oh, you could ask my ex. She'd give you an earful. Or ask my daughter. Maybe she'll say more than a dozen words to you. She won't say much to me, but she makes sure to let me know what a disappointment I am."

"You're still joking."

McCoy sets his cup on the table and laces his fingers together.

"It was always _hard_ ," he says slowly, his tone as serious as he can make it. "It was hard because I was in medical school and had so little time for anything else, and because we had different ideas about the future, and having a child made things even harder. But we didn't break up because it was _hard_. We broke up because it stopped being worth it."

He sets his cup on the table and folds his hands together. "That's my two cents, for what it's worth. Now—are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

Uhura takes a breath and nods. "I thought I knew what I wanted," she says, "but now I'm not sure."

She pushes the salad plate to the side and folds her napkin, clearly stalling. McCoy gives a loud harrumph.

"That's it?"

Uhura meets his gaze again and says, "Remember what Spock said that day we found him unconscious? About our…children?"

"Sure I remember. He saw your daughter, either in the real future, or in some delusional state caused by the star. That's what we're trying to figure out, right? What this star is doing to us."

"It's just," Uhura says, pausing, "that either way, we have children together."

"What do you mean, _either way_?"

"Either what Spock saw is the future the way it will happen, or he saw what he _wants_ to happen."

"And you don't want children."

Uhura lowers her eyes. "I don't know," she says so softly that he has to strain to hear.

"So don't have them until you want them," McCoy says. "Problem solved."

"But if they are in my future, it doesn't matter what I want."

Suddenly McCoy is very tired. Thinking about time loops raises all sorts of philosophical conundrums he's happy to leave to other people to solve. If the future has somehow already happened, then worrying about it makes no sense. He starts to say so but Uhura continues.

"Really, what worries me more is that Spock wants these children. He's thought about their names. What will happen if I don't want them? I mean, _never_ want them? What then?"

Her expression is so earnest, so troubled, that McCoy hesitates before answering. Joanna's birth was without a doubt the happiest moment of his life—deeply life-affirming, joyful, mystical.

But if he's honest, it was also the beginning of the end of his relationship with Jocelyn—whatever it had been before. Need and desire and hopes and dreams—all were thrown into sharp relief and reconsidered and tested by the strain of raising a child. Sleeplessness and physical exhaustion and the never-ending obligation to a helpless human being, weighed against the marvel of watching his daughter grow and change. So hard, so very hard, but still worth it as long as he and Jocelyn set aside their swelling unhappiness with each other.

"I don't _know_ what will happen," McCoy says. "But here's what I _think_. Whatever it is that you and Spock have—whatever pulled you two together and keeps you in each other's orbit—I can see it. Maybe you can't at the moment because you're tired or too close, but I can see it. And if you don't want children—if you never want children—well, that might be _hard_ for him, but it won't mean you aren't worth it."

Pushing her chair back and standing up, Nyota says, "Thank you."

And just like that, she's gone.

XX

In some ways, Leonard McCoy knows her better than anyone on the ship. Better than the captain, who's been in the uncomfortable position of overhearing more than one private moment between her and Spock.

And in some ways more than Spock himself, whose presence can feel—when they are in unity—as close as her next heartbeat. His vulnerability with her—his willingness to trust her to understand what no one else can—makes her sometimes too careful with what she says, or hesitant about sharing her own pain.

With McCoy she has none of that restraint. He has seen her in abject grief and unadulterated joy. He is more forthright with her than she likes but always needs. Her trust in him depends on her belief that he pulls no punches, needs no accolades, acts on the best impulses.

She's told McCoy far more than she's articulated aloud to Spock about her ambivalence about children—though she has no doubt that Spock is aware of her feelings. Even now, as she walks back to her quarters, she feels guilty about sharing so much personal information with McCoy, as if she has somehow betrayed Spock. A silly notion, but she can't help it.

McCoy was willing to listen to her concerns without judgment. Spock would want to parse the meaning of her words, sort through the points of her objections as if she were presenting notes for a debate. Right now she isn't ready for that.

She's already consumed with the paradox of possibly knowing the future. If her daughter and son are waiting for her in the future, then she has, in essence, no free will. No ability to say no to children, no way to swerve from fate or destiny or the inevitability of a looping time continuum.

Something about that predetermined fate rankles her and makes her restless. Even if she is a puppet of fate, she doesn't want to feel like one.

Or if the star isn't throwing them through time and is instead revealing Spock's deepest desires instead, that ties her hands, too—and in some ways, more insidiously. Now if she objects, she is deliberately disappointing him. Yet shouldn't her wishes matter just as much? Isn't compromise the most important element of a relationship?

By the time she opens the door to her cabin, she's irritable again. Briefly she considers sending a note to Spock to suggest he sleep in his own quarters tonight.

"Lights," she calls out, and across the room she sees a lithe young woman stand up as the room is illuminated.

"Who are you?" she asks, but as she does, she already knows.

The young woman gives a trilling laugh.

"I don't have to be anyone if you don't want me to," she says.

"What do you mean?"

"We thought this would be the easiest way to communicate," the young woman says, "but now I see you find me problematic."

"Are you my daughter or not?"

"I can be."

"Will you be? In the future? Is this a vision of what will be?"

The young woman is exactly as Spock has described her—thin, athletic, tall, dark, a blend of Vulcan and human features.

"That's up to you."

"Then this isn't a time continuum. A loop. You aren't from the future. You are from my….imagination."

"I am a child of the star. And I am also yours."

Nyota pulls her communicator from her pocket. With the flick of her thumb, she could summon security or alert Spock. And say what? That she is having a hallucination? She takes a step toward the young woman.

"What is your name," she says. The young woman laughs again, her white teeth like bright pearls against her luminous dark skin.

"You and Father named me long before I was born," she said. "You know who I am."

"Khio'ri."

"Child of a star."

Nyota has a sudden urge to touch this young woman, to make sure that she is a corporeal being. She lifts her hand, half expecting Khio'ri to back away, but to her surprise, the young woman rushes forward and takes her hand. Her fingers are warm, almost unnaturally so, and Nyota closes her hand around them.

"If you aren't from the future, and you aren't an illusion, you can't be my daughter. Tell me who you are. Why are you here?"

"It's so hard to tell you," Khio'ri says. "I don't know the right words."

She squeezes Nyota's hand tighter. "It's important that I give you this message, but I don't know how. Please help me. You are the only one who can understand."

"But I—"

"Please, Mother. Help me."

Khio'ri's eyes are the same color of dark tea as Spock's, her eyebrows more delicate but definitely Vulcan. But her mouth is Nyota's—and the tip of her nose turns up with the same curve that Nyota recognizes on her own face. More than that, Khio'ri's expression is a copy of Nyota's—imploring, insistent, determined.

"You said you are a child of a star. _My_ name means star in Swahili. Are you my child?"

"This is a wonderful body," Khio'ri says, pulling her hand back and holding out her arms like a ballerina. "I hope to rejoin it one day."

"What do you mean? Do you have to leave this body? Why can't you stay?"

"I am the child of a star," she says. "I must go back to my mother. And you must go back to your children as well. All of you. While you are here, we are lost."

Nyota feels a growing sense of alarm as Khio'ri speaks. Alarm and frustration—as the young woman's words become more strident.

"Please, Mother, let me go home."

"Why do you call me Mother? How am I keeping you from going home?"

"This is so hard," Khio'ri says, her lashes suddenly wet with tears. "I do not wish you to leave, but your presence here is causing me pain. And the others are suffering. If it was only me, I would continue, despite the hardship. But I can't do this to the others. They want to go home, and they can't while you are here. It isn't worth it to them to lose everything, as much as they might want to stay. Do you understand yet?"

The growing sense of alarm is like a weight on Nyota's shoulders, neck, head. The bed looms up and she feels Khio'ri's hand leading her to lie down.

"You are the best communicator on this ship," the young woman says in her ear. "Please, Mother, hear me. Tell your captain to let us go. I'll see you one day, I promise."

"I don't understand," Nyota says, but even as she does her eyes are closing. She feels the bed sheet pulled up around her arms and she sinks into the softness of the mattress.

"Remember," Khio'ri says, her voice beginning to fade, "you have to let us go. Please, Mother. Please do this for me."

And all at once the pieces fall into place. Nyota sits bolt upright in the bed in the empty room, her hand pressing the communicator call button.

"Spock here."

"I know what's going on," Nyota says, a note of wonder in her voice. "And I know what we have to do now."

 **Author's Note: One more chapter to go! I know it's hard to keep up with such tardy updates, but I hope you are enjoying this story nevertheless!**


	5. Chapter 5: Travelers All

**Chapter Five: Travelers All**

 **Disclaimer: I am playing in someone else's playground—with gratitude!**

"Sorry I'm late to the party," Leonard McCoy says as he enters the conference room and navigates his way to a chair at the large table. "What did I miss?"

Before Jim can answer, Spock says, "If you were punctual, you would know."

He's not wrong, of course, but McCoy accepts it as the jab Spock probably intended.

"And if I had been punctual, Ensign Rochenko would still be writhing in agony with appendicitis. Or maybe you don't think emergency surgery takes precedence over staff meetings?"

Spock shifts in his seat to better face McCoy.

"Gentlemen," Jim says to head off a response. If what Uhura has just told him is right, they don't need to waste time bickering. Motioning towards her, Jim says, "Lieutenant, do you mind getting the doctor up to speed?"

Jim sees Uhura give Spock a glance. A warning, or at least an unspoken request, a hint of the friction Jim has noticed between them at times. Spock backs off and crosses his arms, silent.

"I think I know what's been happening," Uhura says. "I just had a…visitor…and she said some things that helped me understand."

"What do you mean, a visitor?"

"My… _our_ …daughter. Khio'ri."

"So we _are_ caught in a time loop," McCoy says. "I was wrong when I thought our brains were getting scrambled by the star, that these hallucinations were just that."

"Well, maybe not," Uhura hastens to add. "What if both things are true? Or sort of true? Time travel could be involved, but our minds could also be manipulated to see things."

"You lost me now," McCoy says.

"The young woman I saw told me that she may or may not be my daughter. That she could be if I wanted her to be. What if she isn't really my daughter, but she knows about my daughter?"

"How is that possible? Who is she then?"

"An alien life form. I think she created an image of…Khio'ri….to communicate with me. She said that she wanted us to know that we are causing her harm."

"But you don't have a daughter," McCoy says. "Are you saying this alien traveled into the future, saw your daughter who hasn't even been conceived yet, and pretended to be her to get your attention?"

Jim heard McCoy harrumph.

"It's possible, Bones," Jim says. "I thought I saw a son I don't have."

A slight wobble in his words gives away his failed attempt to sound nonchalant. Uhura's eyes meet his briefly and he is forced to look away.

"And I saw my nephew, but older than he is now," Scotty adds. "What I saw, it didn't make sense. Some terrible things—and _good_ things, but they couldn't both be true."

"Maybe these aliens are reading our minds and fabricating what they think we want to see," McCoy says. "What about the rest of the crew—like me—who haven't seen anything? How do you explain that?"

"Very likely," Spock says drily, "the aliens only appear to reasonable people able to comprehend their message."

McCoy's eyebrows shoot up. "Like you? And what's the message? Hello, now go away?"

"They did say we are hurting them," Jim says. Uhura nods.

"Khio'ri said that our presence is a problem."

"If they are aliens who live in the star," Scotty says, "our orbit might be disrupting their environment."

"What kind of aliens could live in a star?" McCoy's tone is incredulous.

"We've seen odd things before," Jim reminds him. "She did call herself a child of the star."

"A metaphor, more likely," Spock says. "Our survey team has recorded fluctuations in the space-time continuum around Procis 241. It could be evidence that the aliens use the star as a way station of sorts to travel."

Scotty's eyes light up. "We know these variable stars act like nodes in space-time. There's a whole section of Starfleet trying to figure out a way to harness that power to extend the range of transporters. Make a transporter powerful enough and you wouldn't even need starships. Maybe these aliens have figured out a way to do it."

Jim's head is buzzing. If Uhura is right and this is a first contact situation, he needs to inform Command right away.

And if Uhura is right and the aliens are being harmed by the _Enterprise_ , this is also going to be a _last_ contact.

"Just like I said when all this started," McCoy says, "we need to get the hell out of Dodge. Whatever these aliens are doing, we know what _we_ are doing. We are hurting them by being here. So let's leave."

Jim looks around at his other officers. Sulu, who has sat quietly through the discussion, seems unusually pensive.

"Mr. Sulu?" Jim prompts.

Sulu straightens deliberately before answering. "I understand what Dr. McCoy is saying," he says slowly, "but shouldn't we make sure there isn't a way to, I don't know, coexist? I mean, isn't that why we are out here, to discover new life forms and make contact?"

"Aye, captain," Scotty says. "Maybe we can adjust our orbit, or shield our radiation signature if that's the issue. I'd love to have a chat with aliens who know a thing or two about interstellar transportation."

As if on cue, everyone turns their attention to McCoy. He throws his hands up in mock surrender.

"Then it's settled," Jim says. He feels both relief and pride in his crew, in their belief in their mission, and even in Bones' willingness to change his mind. "Now we need to find a way to contact the aliens instead of waiting for them to contact us."

Again Jim senses something unsaid flickering between Spock and Uhura, and then Spock says, "As our communications specialist, Lt. Uhura is best qualified to determine how we proceed."

This time Uhura's expression is no mystery. She beams up at Spock.

"Agreed," Jim says. "Lieutenant, tell us what we need to do."

* * *

The observation lounge at Spacedock is part viewport, part shameless retail snares—small restaurants serving everything from obscure upscale cuisine to ordinary street food, vendors hawking gemstone jewelry and kitsch adorned with worthless rocks, haberdashers serving clientele of various shapes and number of limbs, and entertainment kiosks where patrons watch holovids or hire a sequestered booth for a quiet nap between flights.

Ordinarily Spock avoids this area of Spacedock, preferring to stay close to the docking bays or the Starfleet offices that oversee traffic control and defense operations. Today, however, he sits in one of the open seating areas, watching as Nyota navigates her way through several new open-air stalls selling hand-crafted imported goods. Although he had offered to accompany her as she shopped, she'd turned him down with a laugh.

"I don't want to feel rushed," she'd said, giving him a playful push towards the seating area. "Besides, I might be looking for a gift for you. You have a birthday soon, remember?"

"Vulcans do not—"

"And don't give me any of that _Vulcans don't do birthdays_ stuff. Your dad sent a very nice houseplant last year."

Spock had a flash of his father standing in a doorway, a potted white orchid in his hands.

Except nothing like that had ever happened.

"Are you okay?" Nyota said, peering up at him. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"I am…fine," he stuttered. "Perhaps I did see a ghost."

She gave him another intense stare, shook her head, and watched as he settled on a nearby bench. "I won't be long."

But her definition of "long" is different from his. From the corner of his eye he tracks her progress among the craft vendors while he contemplates the image of his father with an orchid in his hands.

"Flowers can be replaced, but children are fragile," his father says, like an echo in his head. Disturbing, to envision something nonexistent.

Spock forces himself to think of something else. The briefing this morning, Admiral Initio'Elda's face like stone as the captain details how Nyota reconfigured the _Enterprise'_ s radio frequencies as audio counterpoints to the star's background radiation.

"Sure got the aliens' attention all right. Probably sounded like nails on a blackboard to them," Scotty said, grinning, but the admiral, a Selbian from a world that had probably never had blackboards—or nails, for that matter—flicked one ear like someone annoyed by a fly and said nothing. "Yes, well," Scotty said quickly, "what's important is that it worked. The Travelers were able to communicate with us pretty easily after that. Told us how to adjust our orbit so we wouldn't interfere with their transport."

Admiral Initio'Elda's ear flicked again. "Travelers?"

Uhura rushed to answer. "Well, that's the closest word that corresponds to what they call themselves. It's how they define themselves. Travelers in space, travelers in time. As far as we can tell, they don't have a home world. They stay in motion all over the quadrant."

"Now that we know what to look for," Jim added, "we suspect that many variable stars are transit stations for them. We may have even countered them before without knowing it."

The debriefing had ended shortly afterwards, but not before Admiral Initio'Elda sent their report to the Federation diplomats whose task it would be to pursue further ties with the Travelers.

The _Enterprise_ crew, meanwhile, has earned shore leave. Spock assumes Nyota will visit her mother in Nairobi, that the woven blankets and scarves she runs through her fingers and wraps experimentally around her shoulders before buying them will be gifts for family.

Spock catches a glimpse of Jim Kirk chatting with someone ahead of him in line for a shuttle down to Earth. The captain could have pulled rank and ducked to the head of the queue, or he could have wrangled permission to use the _Enterprise's_ transporter for civilian travel, though Jim is the last person Spock would expect to ask for special treatment. He knows where Jim is headed because Jim told him—San Francisco. Jim hasn't told him what he will do there, but logic dictates that Starfleet Academy—and Carol Marcus, whose advanced weapons class is over in 37 minutes-is his true destination. Spock hasn't asked, and Jim hasn't volunteered, much about the vision he had earlier of his son David, but it has obviously, as Spock's mother used to say, _spooked_ him. Left him uneasy or uncertain about what to do next. Not like Jim Kirk to be spooked by anything, which makes it all the more remarkable—and quite possibly the reason Spock noticed it at all.

Spock thinks he understands the feeling. His own reaction to seeing his daughter has spooked him as well, given him a new sense of purpose and a different sensibility about the future. Is Khio'ri out there, waiting to be born? Or is she an imagined creation the Travelers saw in his mind, a longed for child to anchor him, not only to the future, but to the past where his mother still lives in his memory?

He doesn't know, and not knowing something this personal and private _spooks_ him.

He almost sighs. Jim Kirk will show up at Carol Marcus' classroom or her apartment and sort out what his vision of a son might mean for them.

Spock feels no such urgency to speak this way to Nyota. She is equally unsettled, as if the hint of any children at all catches her completely off guard. Pressing her on the matter seems unwise, or unkind.

"Window shopper." Dr. McCoy is suddenly standing behind Spock, hands on his hips. Motioning toward Nyota, who seems to be in some financial negotiation with a seller, he says, "Don't Vulcans buy things? Or do you always make other people do that work for you?"

"I thought you were spending your leave in Georgia," Spock says, refusing to acknowledge the doctor's jibe.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to buy a birthday gift for my daughter first," McCoy says. "Apparently the one I sent her didn't make it, or more likely, got intercepted."

"You will visit your daughter?"

"She's not going to be happy about it, but I don't care. I need to see her. She needs to see me. End of discussion."

McCoy's tone is more defiant than defeated. Still, his posture indicates something hesitant, or even fearful.

"You believe your daughter does not wish to see you?"

"Of course she doesn't! She's 14. What 14-year-old wants to spend time with her old man?"

Spock thinks of a family trip he took with his parents when he was 14, a quick jaunt from Vulcan to Seattle to see his formidable grandmother. He'd spent the trip in _cahoots_ with his cousins, another word his mother used liberally. His older cousin Chris had recently learned to drive and insisted on taking his young sisters and Spock for long rides in the family hovercar.

"What are you all getting up to?" Spock's mother asked when they trooped in after dark, Spock still spooked by Chris's daredevil maneuvers through the nearby gorges.

But his mother's grin said she didn't really want to know. She ruffled his hair and laughed when he backed away. "Wash up and help your aunt get supper on the table," she said, and Spock darted thankfully up the stairs behind his cousins. Settled in a chair reading a newspad, Sarek watched the teens with a knowing eye.

Spock had felt watched over. Cared about. If he was not precisely happy, he was at least content.

"Perhaps your daughter needs more time to see that you are a caring person," Spock says. "The way your friends do." A slight hesitation, and then he adds, "As I do."

McCoy snorts—not in surprise or annoyance but the way humans sometimes signal humorous agreement.

"You, Spock? I thought I was just your punching bag."

"A worthy opponent, more likely." Spock meets McCoy's gaze and the doctor nods quickly, as if resolving something within himself.

"Yeah, well okay," he says. "Thanks. I, uh, need to go find that gift."

The doctor walks briskly toward the open-air stalls where Nyota appears to have finalized her transaction. Although they are out of earshot, Spock can tell that when they greet each other—Nyota holding up a piece of cloth for McCoy's inspection—they exchange warm pleasantries. Then she waves goodbye and heads straight to the sitting area.

Spock stands and catches himself before he puts out his hand to touch hers. An instinctive reaction—a cultural necessity on Vulcan where touch telepathy is the norm and something reserved for private moments. Still, Nyota wouldn't have minded. Would have welcomed it, in fact. With an effort, Spock unclenches his fist and holds his palm toward her.

Surprise and then delight in her expression—and she slips her cool fingers in his fevered hand.

With an effort, he says, "I checked on flight times for you. There's a commercial cruiser leaving at 1800 hours."

"What are you talking about?"

"I assume you want to spend your leave in Nairobi with your family."

"Oh, you do, do you? What logic led you to that conclusion?"

He knows she's teasing him, but he can't help but fall into his pedantic teacher voice. "First, the _Enterprise_ has been away from Earth for 153 days without any substantive leave time. The longest amount of time you have been apart from your mother and family is 137 days. The length of your mother's mail to you in the past ten days has been 12% longer than average, suggesting more entreaties for you to come see her—"

"You read my mail?!"

"I did not and would not. I did, however, make note of the transmission time—and hence, each missive's relative length."

He pauses as a group of brightly dressed young schoolgirls dart past, the sound of their boots drowning out the ambient noise.

"Furthermore," Spock continues when they are finally out of range, "you bought a hand-woven blanket just now from one of the crafts shops. I am not in need of a blanket, nor are you, so this is clearly a gift for your mother, to appease her for your long absence."

Nyota's laugh is deep and throaty—and with a start, Spock realizes that he hasn't heard her sound this happy in a long time. The impending visit with her mother must be lifting her spirits.

"That's amazing," Nyota says, squeezing his hand.

"Simple logic," Spock says.

Again Nyota laughs. "And completely wrong! Or rather, you were right about one thing. I do want to spend my leave with my family."

"Then we should hurry to the gate where the cruiser—"

"I said I want to spend my leave with family. With you, Spock. My _family_."

"I thought—"

"Look, we need some time to talk about what that means—to be family. About what we want our family to look like. Maybe the Travelers have given us a gift. Forced us—forced me—to think about the future. About…children."

"We don't have to have children," Spock says, his voice for Nyota's ear alone. "We still don't know if the Travelers were showing us things they saw in the future, or things they saw in our own imaginations."

"Don't you see? It doesn't matter. What if she's just a product of our imagination? We have the same dream, Spock, the same image of our daughter. And if she's somehow really in our future waiting for us, then it will be because we decided to make our imagined child a reality. Isn't that what every parent does?"

As they talk they make their way toward the large translucent viewscreen that looks out over the docked ships. To facilitate the view, the lights are dimmed and shadows give the area a hushed feel, like the old cathedrals Spock has visited on Earth. When he's sure they are alone and unobserved, Spock pulls Nyota into his arms and presses his face into her hair. Her heartbeat, as quick and light as a bird, reassures him in a way he can't explain.

A scuff of shoes nearby indicates someone walking towards the viewscreen. Spock lets go of Nyota and takes a step back.

Startled, an older man bobs his head apologetically and moves away.

Nyota gives a rueful grin. "So much for the romantic moment."

"We could try again," Spock says. "Perhaps somewhere more conducive—"

"Where did you have in mind? Paris? That's pretty romantic? Or we _could_ drop in and stay with my mother—"

For a moment he thinks she is serious and his heart gives an alarmed thump in his side. Then she laughs and says, "Actually, I was thinking we could go back to our quarters. With most of the crew gone, it will be nice and quiet. We could probably think of something to do." She waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

"I could meditate," he says and is rewarded by her horrified expression. Then a gradual smile blooms as she realizes he is returning her tease.

"We could play poker," she says.

"Tiddlywinks," he counters.

"I don't know how." She lets her forefinger drift across his wrist and he shivers. He pivots quickly toward the observation deck exit and they head toward the _Enterprise_ 's gangplank at the end of the enclosed walkway. The sentry, a young ensign sporting a patchy beard, salutes smartly.

"Looks like you've been shopping," he says, pointing to the blanket in Nyota's left hand. In reply she unfolds it and holds it up for his inspection—the soft woven design of interlocking stars shimmering in the reflection of the _Enterprise_ 's running lights.

As soon as they enter the turbolift, Spock says, "Nyota, if your wish is to present this blanket to your mother tonight, you don't have to stay here. There's still time—"

Before he can finish, Nyota's lips are on his and he stands rooted in place, like someone speared by lightning.

"I told you," she whispers when she pulls back, "I want to be with my family right now. And this blanket isn't for my mother. It's a baby blanket. I have a feeling we might need it one day."

The future is unknown and uncertain, but right now in this moment, he feels watched over. Cared about. Content and even happy. He leans forward to kiss Nyota again but she puts her finger on his lips and says, "Now, what was that you said about tiddlywinks?"

 **Author's Notes: And so we come to an end! I hope you enjoyed reading this little story as much as I enjoyed writing it!**


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